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I FOR INDIA
Written & Directed by Sandhya Suri.
Produced by Carlo Cresto-Dina.
Edited by Cinzia Baldessari & Brian Tagg.
Released by First Run/Icarus Films.
Language: English & Hindi with English subtitles.
UK/Italy/Germany. 70 min. Not Rated.

I is for intimacy. Transcendent love and vulnerability color every frame of Sandhya Suri’s début documentary of her family’s move from India to England. While the theme of leaving home in search of a better life is common in film, it’s a rarity to witness the heartbreak and heroism in an unvarnished first-person account.

The much lauded film – a 2006 Sundance Film Festival selection – and highly-praised young filmmaker benefit immeasurably from the man who started documenting his life even before Sandhya Suri was born. In 1965, her father, Doctor Yash Pal Suri, immigrated with his wife and first-born daughter. In an effort to keep in touch with relatives, Suri bought two Super 8 mm cameras, two projectors, and two reel-to-reel tape recorders. He kept one set of equipment and sent the other to his family in India. For the next 40 years, they exchanged home movies and cultural observations. In England, the couple welcomed two more daughters, including Sandhya, and regularly recorded milestones. Movies from Darlington, in the north of England, featured birthday parties, vacations, and local customs; the reels shot in India featured weddings, family dinners, and an elderly father literally crying for the return of his eldest son. Meanwhile in his audio recordings, Yash worries about maintaining his connection to Indian culture and confides his frustration that many English don’t bother to correctly pronounce his surname.

Director Sandhya Suri had the daunting task of gleaning the best of the family material and giving the saga pace and a cultural context. To that end, Suri uses rich archival footage from BBC programs. A pervasive fear, at the time, was that British culture would be eclipsed by the traditions of the “coloured” immigrants. One particularly patronizing film, geared toward Indians and Pakistanis, was a demonstration of a light switch. Occasionally, though, the film cries out for a few lines of narration. Clearly an intelligent and sensitive filmmaker, Sandhya Suri could’ve offered the audience more specific details of immigrant life and insights into the “bewitching contrasts” of her parent’s homeland.

As the film progresses, Suri’s parents become ever more comfortable in front of the camera, attending to the mundane and the celebratory. Part of the documentary’s drama is the family’s 1982 return to India. While being surrounded by youths who look and speak like them, the girls miss England, and their father’s efforts to start a medical clinic fail. He candidly acknowledges: sometimes, you just can’t go home again.

Coming full circle, Suri’s parents must ultimately come to terms with the wanderlust of one of their own daughters. In this new millennium, webcam visits, not a Super 8mm camera, keep the family in touch. But the hurt and longing for family oceans apart is palpable. I for India is evocative and moving – an escape from the ordinary. Sophisticated and subtle, Sandhya Suri’s family saga is a rare and insightful delight, which leaves us wanting more from the promising young director. Elisa Klein
November 14, 2007